Ungrateful bastards
by viv-heart
Summary: ZoSan, Frobin, ASL, NamiVivi Modern AU - some problems can be solved only by certain people.


**AN: Thanks to aerle and stirling phoenix for betaing**

 **I hope you, the READER, get the message.**

* * *

Zoro was surprised to see Sanji cook in the middle of the night when he walked into the kitchen in between two naps.

He walked behind Sanji kissed him on the back, just below his neck.

"Stop it," Sanji growled, not stopping his task of chipping the carrots in front of him.

Zoro didn't move, his raised eyebrow the only indication that he even heard Sanji. "What's wrong?" he asked. Something had to be wrong if Sanji reacted this way when he hugged him from behind as he usually loved it.

"Fanfics," Sanji muttered, cutting the vegetables in front of him mercilessly. "No reviews," he hissed between clenched teeth. "No feedback. Nothing. Only over thousand views!"

Zoro leaned down to give his boyfriend another kiss on the same spot. He knew how the lack of feedback affected Sanji, making the blond doubt his writing abilities.

And that didn't sit well with Zoro. He hated when his beloved and usually so confident Sanji couldn't deal with something. And the lack of response to his favourite hobby drove Sanji mad.

"You know that you are good, really good," Zoro whispered. "You are good even though you glorification of women drives me mad," he added teasingly.

"I know," Sanji whined and put the knife away so he could turn around to face Zoro. "I know that I am good. But I want to improve and I can't without critique. I need the opinions of those people to be able to deliver better content. But they don't get that I can't improve without their help "

"You already have, darling." Zoro gave Sanji a kiss in an attempt to distract the other. "You get better with every story. You know that."

"I do! Doesn't change that it would be more than helpful to get something back." Sanji responded, allowing Zoro to plaster his neck with butterfly kisses. "I know that I should be grateful for what I already get, but one review per five hundred views being the norm makes me sick."

"It's not your fault that the readers are such ungrateful bastards," Zoro muttered, before attempting to place a hickey on Sanji's neck. "Maybe you should just kick their asses to change something. But now shut up and kiss me."

* * *

Robin looked up from her laptop screen when Franky entered.

"I didn't hear you coming," she noted with slight surprise.

The man laughed out loud as he made his way towards her to kiss her hello. "Maybe you were just so absorbed in that fic. It must be SUPER," Franky joked.

"Well, it is super like you said." Robin spoke with a sad smile. "It pains me to see that the poor writer has only two reviews for ten thousand words. Considering the effort, it is really unfair. And it's not like it isn't a good story. On the contrary, it's one of the better stories I have read till now."  
"Well, not everybody is SUPER enough to get hundred reviews per chapter like you," Franky said with a grim face. "They will get better and get more recognition in the future."

Robin rolled her eyes. She knew how it had been when she started. But now, ten years later, it was much harder than before as there were a lot more writers and a much wider variety of fics as the numbers grew over the time. Not to mention the fandoms that had grown lazier and lazier over the time. Besides, the people grew older and the more successful writers barely had time to write, let alone time to read.

This was the reason why Robin got back to actively reading and reviewing fanfics during her pregnancy. She wasn't allowed to work as it would endanger the baby if she ran around in the desert looking for ancient ruins, so she had a lot of free time and supporting young writers was a great way to fill it.

"You have no idea. Unfortunately, there is a mentality that makes it hard to get well-known. People started to believe that the ones who get the recognition and are already known deserve it and nobody else does. It's not only about real world but even more about fanfiction. On one hand, it is fascinating to see those parallels, on the other, those people are ungrateful bastards.

* * *

Ace was lying on the couch upside down, his legs over the back, his head hanging down.

"Ace!" Luffy called when he saw his older brother in that position. "Can I do it too?" he asked. "It looks like fun!"

"Later, Lu," Ace muttered, closing his eyes. "I am not in the mood to play. Go ask Sabo."

Just as he said those words, Sabo entered the living room.

"What are you doing?" he asked when his eyes fell on Ace. "Stop giving Luffy weird ideas!"

"I try to make blood flow into my brain so it starts working properly," Ace explained with a serious face. "And Lu doesn't need my weird ideas. He had enough of his own!"

Sabo lifted an eyebrow. "Is there a reason for your grumpiness?" he asked and sat down next to Ace.

"Writers block!" Ace pouted, still hanging from the couch and making no indication that he would change that anytime soon.

"Let me destroy it!" Luffy shouted, taking a fighting-pose.

"Thanks, Lu, but I believe even you can't do that." Ace smiled sadly.

"Why not?" Luffy asked in confusion. "It is a blockade, I can simply punch it until it breaks into pieces. I can do that!"

"We know." Sabo gave the eight year old a fond smile. "But it's in his head and we don't want to break Ace's head, do we?"

"No. We don't." Luffy felt silent after those words before turning around and running off to his room, judging by the noise he made.

"Lack of reviews, huh?" Sabo asked after a while and glanced at Ace, who nodded to confirm the hypothesis.

"It's not funny anymore," he huffed and finally changed his position. "At times, five reviews per chapter are not what I hope for, but they keep me going. But getting one or two for a few updates is frustrating. I know that it's my own fault for shipping weird stuff, but even for the popular ones there is basically no recognition!" He got incensed. "And still, after a few months of not updating there are always messages from people who never left any other feedback that ask for updates! Don't they get that they act like ungrateful bastards?"  
"Watch your language," Sabo interrupted Ace's monologue as Luffy reentered the room, a piece of paper in his hand.

He walked to his brothers and held the paper and a pencil in front of Ace.

"Draw your blockade on the paper so I can destroy it," he demanded. "I tried myself, but then I thought it would be smarter to let you do that."

A grin spread across Ace's face at all that cuteness and he slid from the couch to pull Luffy into a tight hug, while Sabo watched with amusement.

* * *

Vivi put the mugs on the living room table. "Are you writing?"

Nami looked up from her laptop she had been typing on lazily for the past half an hour. "I wish." she muttered with a sour expression.

"What's wrong?" Vivi sat down next to her girlfriend just to lean over and catch a glance at the laptop screen.

A document with only a few lines was open, the title being "/The Saint/".

"I don't know how to continue." Nami sighed, running a hand through her hair. "Since the Big Bang, I haven't been able to write more than 500 words for a story."

Vivi leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Do you know why? Are you out of ideas?" she asked softly.

"Never." Nami let out a bitter laugh. "It's the lack of feedback. One person out of twelve hundred views reviewed. One in twelve hunded thought that the story was worth reviewing!" she called out.

Vivi grabbed her girlfriend's hand, and started massaging soft circles with her thumb. "Maybe they haven't finished reading yet." she tried halfheartedly.

Both knew that that was utter bullshit. The whole fandom had a huge feedback problem. While artists like Vivi got comments and nice words in the reblogs on Tumblr and similar websites, fanfic authors were generally fucked, except they were one of the few "chosen ones" who had a certain level of popularity.

The others were lucky to get kudos and follows. It was pretty unfair in Vivi's opinion and hurt the writers a lot. After all, it was not the first time that Nami was frustrated and annoyed by not getting anything back. Sure, she was writing for fun, but it wasn't like it was no effort at all and it took a lot of time.

So why didn't the readers even consider to review or message the author? Why was it more than normal to have one review per two hundred fifty, five hundred or even thousand views?

"I saw another post about being too shy to comment," Nami muttered with bitterness. "Oh my god, I am too shy to tell them that I liked they story or that I didn't. Oh my god, I never thought about using the anonymous review option. Oh my god, it's a stupid excuse," she mocked. "It's not like publishing shit online doesn't take some guts. No, leaving a stupid review is so much harder and takes so much more effort."  
It was Vivi's turn to sigh. Nami was having one of her legendary rage fits, but this one was more than reasonable.

Finishing her Big Bang fic took her half a year after all. And it wasn't like she got much on other stories as well.

. And it wasn't like she got much on other stories as well.

"But somebody reviewed at least?" Vivi asked, glancing at Nami who had put her head on Vivi's shoulder.

"Yeah. Kaya. Each of the twelve chapters. She is such a sweetheart, but I believe the twelve reviews make the others review even less. They think I have gotten enough feedback already and with that they don't have to feel bad about they laziness," Nami responded weakly, already calm, as she knew that there was no use in throwing a tantrum with this. It wouldn't change anything. But what would? She didn't know. Maybe showing readers how frustrated the authors were? Maybe quitting just to show them what they got for free?

"You should rest," Vivi whispered, kissing Nami's hair. "Drink your tea."

Nami smiled as she closed her laptop and put it on the table. She stood up and made her way out of the room, probably to use the bathroom, leaving Vivi alone, who sat there and watched her girlfriend walk out.

She didn't write herself, but it was insulting to see how the writers were treated even for a beta reader.

It was so stupid, a joke, and made even an usually calm person like her want to punch somebody, preferably the people who chose to ignore all the author's notes asking for feedback and concrit. "Ungrateful bastards," Vivi hissed.


End file.
